HOW TO DO MEDICAL MARIJUANA RIGHT

After an unnecessary dust-up with the city attorney over his own powers, San Diego Mayor Bob Filner last week halted the city’s crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries and said he will soon develop a new ordinance allowing pot shops to again operate within city limits. An enthusiastic supporter said he was optimistic an ordinance can be crafted “that the entire community can support.” That might, indeed, be possible and we urge the mayor and his group to look to the models adopted by Connecticut and New Jersey for how to do it right.

Under the medical marijuana act enacted in Connecticut last May, physicians certified by the state serve as gatekeepers for the program. Patients seeking palliative use of marijuana must first be registered by a certified physician with whom they have established an ongoing relationship.

In addition, patients must be diagnosed by the physician as having one of the debilitating medical conditions specifically identified in the law, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord nerve damage, epilepsy, Crohn’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. The law also restricts where the marijuana can be used and how much a patient can legally have on hand at a given time – 2.5 ounces.

Under the New Jersey law, also passed last year, there can be only six nonprofit dispensaries scattered around the entire state, with each operating under a state contract. Patients are limited to how much marijuana they can buy each month and the level of THC – the active ingredient in marijuana – is limited. As in Connecticut, New Jersey patients can get a recommendation for marijuana only from a doctor with whom they have an ongoing relationship and the doctor must be approved by the state. And the list of medical conditions qualifying for marijuana treatment is similarly limited.

In truth, San Diego or any other local government in California may not be able to enact a medical marijuana ordinance as strict as those in Connecticut and New Jersey because of the absurdly loose provisions of Proposition 215, the medical pot initiative approved by Golden State voters in 1996.

But here’s the real point: Connecticut and New Jersey treat medical marijuana like they should – as a drug that may well provide relief for truly sick patients suffering from specific maladies, but one that could also have dangerous ramifications for patients and for the broader community if not properly regulated.

That’s what California voters hoped they were getting when they passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, not the unregulated mess that led to the proliferation of dispensaries in San Diego neighborhoods and allowed anyone with a painful hangnail to get a marijuana recommendation from a doctor they may have never even seen.

We hope Mayor Filner remembers the real intent of voters and what happened in San Diego when that intent was ignored.